We are looking at the economic impact of energy policy and for that we need to know, for each energy technology, how each euro (or dollar, etc) spent in either investment or operation and maintenance is allocated to a particular good/service/sector. For example, the investment costs of wind energy are x% equipment, y%land, etc.
Notice that we are looking for cost shares and not total cost values, we have found those (e.g. investment cost in euro per MW of installed power). We have also found good cost share data for wind power but only fragmented information concerning the other technologies.
Suggestions of where to find such data for coal refining, oil refining, coal thermal power, oil thermal power, gas thermal power, hydro, biomass, geothermal, and photovoltaic are most welcome.
If it's of interest to anyone I can also post here the list of sources that we found on this subject already.
If you consider the total price of the electricity produced by different energy sources, then the following information could help
The escalating prices of crude oil and natural gas as supply dwindles has prompted some reluctant governments to further consider investment in green energy alternatives. However, conventional types of renewable energy resources with widespread, practical usage all require initial capital investments that often dwarf what is required for natural gas and coal power plants.
Fortunately, the increase in research and development has yielded cheaper production methods and more durable, cost-effective materials that continue to bring these costs down.
In an effort to assess the real viability of alternative energy solutions on a large-scale, it is useful to compare the cost per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for each of the five most common types of renewable energy resources. The cost in cents per kWh includes initial capital costs (amortized), maintenance, fuel and waste disposal costs. Tax incentives are built into the calculations.
Natural gas and coal power
Natural gas and coal power currently have per kWh costs of US$0.039 – US$0.055, although these costs continue to rise as energy reserves continue to be depleted. Natural gas burns more cleanly than coal and doesn’t require as much mining, although they both produce substantial carbon dioxide emissions. Renewable resources, in contrast, enjoy pricing stability for the next 20 or more years. Along with minimal or zero emissions, tax subsidies, and inexhaustible fuel sources, sustainable resources have a host of environmental and financial benefits.
Biomass – (US$0.029- US$0.09/kWh)
Cost estimates vary depending on the combustion method used. In solid waste landfills, naturally occurring anaerobic digestion creates methane used to generate electricity. Similarly, waste generated by lumber mills provides fuel that is essentially free. A slightly more costly source of biomass energy is the anaerobic digestion of animal manure. Conventional combustion technology is the most flexible, but also the most expensive to implement and operate. Although these types of renewable energy resources can eliminate waste products while generating electricity, biomass fuels are bulky and expensive to transport far distances. And unlike other renewable resources, the cost of biomass fuels is not being driven down by technological innovation.
Wind – (US$0.038-US$0.06/kWh)
The use of lightweight but durable materials and more aerodynamic designs have significantly lowered the production cost of the wind turbine. Cost alone is not the only concern when considering wide-scale deployment of wind farms. Susceptibility to failure from mechanical fatigue, the inability to function well in the rain or in cold climates, and the noise created from vibration, should all be taken into account when considering the true cost of using this abundant energy source. Despite the substantial upfront investment required for the generator, it requires a marginal operating cost of less than US$0.01 per kilowatt-hour.
Geothermal – (US$0.039-US$0.30/kWh)
The considerable variability of costs for this renewable energy resource comes largely from the type of plant constructed and the depth of drilling required. Boasting incredible uptime of more than 97%, geothermal plants can operate more efficiently and consistently than coal plants with uptimes of around 70%. In comparison to natural gas, the annual reserves available are quite low. Binary geothermal plants (currently the preferred technology) are small, and can be built in a variety of different places including acreages and rural farmland. Even though they are smaller, they still carry a higher initial investment than natural gas plants. Despite the sustainability of its free fuel source, the high cost of well drilling and pipeline construction prevent many of these plants from ever being built.
Hydro – (US$0.051-US$0.11/kWh)
Accounting for more than 20% of worldwide energy production, hydropower is the most practical and universal of these five types of renewable energy resources. While they can only be built in a limited number of places due to the extraordinary amount of space required, hydropower plants are the most efficient source of green electricity and contribute no waste or emissions into the environment. Environmentalists argue that large hydroelectric power projects destroy marine ecosystems and disrupt fragile habitats. In response to these protests, governments and private enterprise have developed several cutting-edge technologies such as hydrokinetic power systems that generate power without the need for dams.
Solar – (US$0.15-US$0.30/kWh)
Solar power systems include photovoltaic, which convert the sun’s energy directly into electricity, and solar-thermal which uses solar energy to heat water in residential and commercial applications. The high cost of these types of renewable energy is largely due to the high price of silicon crystals. Silicon prices continue to rise as their widespread production applications are leading to supply shortages. However, newly developed alternative materials could bring the cost down below US$0.05/kWh in the near future.
The environmental benefits of using green electricity unarguably outweigh any financial drawbacks. Nonetheless, it’s still prudent to consider the real financial viability of each of these leading types of renewable energy resources as a real alternative to fossil fuel-based energy.
Nuclear energy
The economics of nuclear power involves consideration of several aspects:
Capital costs, which include the cost of site preparation, construction, manufacture, commissioning and financing a nuclear power plant. Building a large-scale nuclear reactor takes thousands of workers, huge amounts of steel and concrete, thousands of components, and several systems to provide electricity, cooling, ventilation, information, control and communication. To compare different power generation technologies the capital costs must be expressed in terms of the generating capacity of the plant (for example as dollars per kilowatt). Capital costs may be calculated with the financing costs included or excluded. If financing costs are included, then the capital costs change in proportion to the length of time it takes to build and commission the plant and with the interest rate or mode of financing employed. It is normally termed the ‘investment cost’. If the financing costs are excluded from the calculation the capital costs is called the ‘overnight cost’, because it imagines that the plant appeared fully built overnight.
Plant operating costs, which include the costs of fuel, operation and maintenance, and a provision for funding the costs of decommissioning the plant and treating and disposing of used fuel and wastes. Operating costs may be divided into ‘fixed costs’ that are incurred whether or not the plant is generating electricity and ‘variable costs’, which vary in relation to the output. Normally these costs are expressed relative to a unit of electricity (for example, cents per kilowatt-hour) to allow a consistent comparison with other energy technologies. To calculate the operating cost of a plant over its whole life (including the costs of decommissioning and used fuel and waste management), we must estimate the ‘levelised’ cost at present value. It represents the price that the electricity must fetch if the project is to break even (after taking account of the opportunity cost of capital through the application of a discount rate).
External costs to society from the operation, which in the case of a nuclear power is usually assumed to be zero, but could include the costs of dealing with a serious accident that are beyond the insurance limit and in practice need to be picked up by the government. The regulations that control nuclear power typically require the plant operator to make a provision for disposing of any waste, thus these costs are ‘internalised’ (and are not external). Electricity generation from fossil fuels is not regulated in the same way, and therefore the operators of such thermal power plants do not yet internalise the costs of greenhouse gas emission or of other gases and particulates released into the atmosphere. Including these external costs in the calculation gives nuclear power a significant advantage over fossil fuelled electricity generation.
In 2013, the US Energy Information Administration published figures for the average levelized costs per unit of output for generating technologies to be brought on line in 2018, as modeled for its Annual Energy Outlook. These show advanced nuclear, natural gas (advanced combustion turbine), and conventional coal in the bracket 10-11c/kWh. Combined cycle natural gas is 6.6 cents, advanced coal with CCS 13.6 cents, and among the non-dispatchable technologies: wind onshore 8.7 cents, solar photovoltaic 14.4 cents, offshore wind 22.2 cents and solar thermal 26.2 c/kWh. The actual capital cost of nuclear is about the same as coal, and very much more than any gas option.
Interesting.... If you get this information to various sources (ocean waves, ocean currents, geothermal, otec etc.) and not just to the classical sources (hydro, wind, PV), I would like you to publish here. I believe it will be necessary to differentiate by world region, among other factors.
If you consider the total price of the electricity produced by different energy sources, then the following information could help
The escalating prices of crude oil and natural gas as supply dwindles has prompted some reluctant governments to further consider investment in green energy alternatives. However, conventional types of renewable energy resources with widespread, practical usage all require initial capital investments that often dwarf what is required for natural gas and coal power plants.
Fortunately, the increase in research and development has yielded cheaper production methods and more durable, cost-effective materials that continue to bring these costs down.
In an effort to assess the real viability of alternative energy solutions on a large-scale, it is useful to compare the cost per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for each of the five most common types of renewable energy resources. The cost in cents per kWh includes initial capital costs (amortized), maintenance, fuel and waste disposal costs. Tax incentives are built into the calculations.
Natural gas and coal power
Natural gas and coal power currently have per kWh costs of US$0.039 – US$0.055, although these costs continue to rise as energy reserves continue to be depleted. Natural gas burns more cleanly than coal and doesn’t require as much mining, although they both produce substantial carbon dioxide emissions. Renewable resources, in contrast, enjoy pricing stability for the next 20 or more years. Along with minimal or zero emissions, tax subsidies, and inexhaustible fuel sources, sustainable resources have a host of environmental and financial benefits.
Biomass – (US$0.029- US$0.09/kWh)
Cost estimates vary depending on the combustion method used. In solid waste landfills, naturally occurring anaerobic digestion creates methane used to generate electricity. Similarly, waste generated by lumber mills provides fuel that is essentially free. A slightly more costly source of biomass energy is the anaerobic digestion of animal manure. Conventional combustion technology is the most flexible, but also the most expensive to implement and operate. Although these types of renewable energy resources can eliminate waste products while generating electricity, biomass fuels are bulky and expensive to transport far distances. And unlike other renewable resources, the cost of biomass fuels is not being driven down by technological innovation.
Wind – (US$0.038-US$0.06/kWh)
The use of lightweight but durable materials and more aerodynamic designs have significantly lowered the production cost of the wind turbine. Cost alone is not the only concern when considering wide-scale deployment of wind farms. Susceptibility to failure from mechanical fatigue, the inability to function well in the rain or in cold climates, and the noise created from vibration, should all be taken into account when considering the true cost of using this abundant energy source. Despite the substantial upfront investment required for the generator, it requires a marginal operating cost of less than US$0.01 per kilowatt-hour.
Geothermal – (US$0.039-US$0.30/kWh)
The considerable variability of costs for this renewable energy resource comes largely from the type of plant constructed and the depth of drilling required. Boasting incredible uptime of more than 97%, geothermal plants can operate more efficiently and consistently than coal plants with uptimes of around 70%. In comparison to natural gas, the annual reserves available are quite low. Binary geothermal plants (currently the preferred technology) are small, and can be built in a variety of different places including acreages and rural farmland. Even though they are smaller, they still carry a higher initial investment than natural gas plants. Despite the sustainability of its free fuel source, the high cost of well drilling and pipeline construction prevent many of these plants from ever being built.
Hydro – (US$0.051-US$0.11/kWh)
Accounting for more than 20% of worldwide energy production, hydropower is the most practical and universal of these five types of renewable energy resources. While they can only be built in a limited number of places due to the extraordinary amount of space required, hydropower plants are the most efficient source of green electricity and contribute no waste or emissions into the environment. Environmentalists argue that large hydroelectric power projects destroy marine ecosystems and disrupt fragile habitats. In response to these protests, governments and private enterprise have developed several cutting-edge technologies such as hydrokinetic power systems that generate power without the need for dams.
Solar – (US$0.15-US$0.30/kWh)
Solar power systems include photovoltaic, which convert the sun’s energy directly into electricity, and solar-thermal which uses solar energy to heat water in residential and commercial applications. The high cost of these types of renewable energy is largely due to the high price of silicon crystals. Silicon prices continue to rise as their widespread production applications are leading to supply shortages. However, newly developed alternative materials could bring the cost down below US$0.05/kWh in the near future.
The environmental benefits of using green electricity unarguably outweigh any financial drawbacks. Nonetheless, it’s still prudent to consider the real financial viability of each of these leading types of renewable energy resources as a real alternative to fossil fuel-based energy.
Nuclear energy
The economics of nuclear power involves consideration of several aspects:
Capital costs, which include the cost of site preparation, construction, manufacture, commissioning and financing a nuclear power plant. Building a large-scale nuclear reactor takes thousands of workers, huge amounts of steel and concrete, thousands of components, and several systems to provide electricity, cooling, ventilation, information, control and communication. To compare different power generation technologies the capital costs must be expressed in terms of the generating capacity of the plant (for example as dollars per kilowatt). Capital costs may be calculated with the financing costs included or excluded. If financing costs are included, then the capital costs change in proportion to the length of time it takes to build and commission the plant and with the interest rate or mode of financing employed. It is normally termed the ‘investment cost’. If the financing costs are excluded from the calculation the capital costs is called the ‘overnight cost’, because it imagines that the plant appeared fully built overnight.
Plant operating costs, which include the costs of fuel, operation and maintenance, and a provision for funding the costs of decommissioning the plant and treating and disposing of used fuel and wastes. Operating costs may be divided into ‘fixed costs’ that are incurred whether or not the plant is generating electricity and ‘variable costs’, which vary in relation to the output. Normally these costs are expressed relative to a unit of electricity (for example, cents per kilowatt-hour) to allow a consistent comparison with other energy technologies. To calculate the operating cost of a plant over its whole life (including the costs of decommissioning and used fuel and waste management), we must estimate the ‘levelised’ cost at present value. It represents the price that the electricity must fetch if the project is to break even (after taking account of the opportunity cost of capital through the application of a discount rate).
External costs to society from the operation, which in the case of a nuclear power is usually assumed to be zero, but could include the costs of dealing with a serious accident that are beyond the insurance limit and in practice need to be picked up by the government. The regulations that control nuclear power typically require the plant operator to make a provision for disposing of any waste, thus these costs are ‘internalised’ (and are not external). Electricity generation from fossil fuels is not regulated in the same way, and therefore the operators of such thermal power plants do not yet internalise the costs of greenhouse gas emission or of other gases and particulates released into the atmosphere. Including these external costs in the calculation gives nuclear power a significant advantage over fossil fuelled electricity generation.
In 2013, the US Energy Information Administration published figures for the average levelized costs per unit of output for generating technologies to be brought on line in 2018, as modeled for its Annual Energy Outlook. These show advanced nuclear, natural gas (advanced combustion turbine), and conventional coal in the bracket 10-11c/kWh. Combined cycle natural gas is 6.6 cents, advanced coal with CCS 13.6 cents, and among the non-dispatchable technologies: wind onshore 8.7 cents, solar photovoltaic 14.4 cents, offshore wind 22.2 cents and solar thermal 26.2 c/kWh. The actual capital cost of nuclear is about the same as coal, and very much more than any gas option.
I can point you to some public data sources for the U.S. market. Though it won't be exactly in the format that you want you can take it and synthesize it to at least fit some of your criteria.
Large, regulated utilities must report financial information to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on FERC Form 1. This data can be accessed at the following website: http://www.ferc.gov/docs-filing/forms/form-1/data.asp
However, it is in a form that is very hard to access. You should contact their technical support to get the raw data files. They have data by utility on all utility costs organized into general plant types: steam, hydro, nuclear and "other". O&M spending, for example, will be broken up by those plant types, as well as transmission, distribution, customer costs, and A&G and will include costs on such items as supervision and engineering, fuel, rents, structure, maintenance of plant or equipment specific to a generation type, etc.
For the "steam" and "other" you will have to find the databases of which plants they own and what the primary fuels are. For that you can check out the powerplant/generator data available. There are a lot of data links on the Energy Information Administration (EIA) "electricity data" site here: http://www.eia.gov/electricity/data.cfm Especially scroll down to the heading "Revenue and Expense Statistics for..." Most of EIA's data is obtained through extensive surveys required from plant and generator owners and operators, utilities, and other related companies.
It may take awhile to sort through all the available data, but you should be able to put something together from it if you have the time.
We have a project in Poland right now for an education destination for children in a major shopping centre in Warsaw. We calculated 3 x 5kWp turbines for the car park, 1,5 ha roof cover or 1MWp of 240w panels and our PowerCan 200 small scale gasification unit which will co fire the cellulose waste [we did not discount this] as biomass which has further cost savings in the region of 60 Euro per day.
We compared three technologies based on the basic commercial rate in Poland of 10 Euro Cents per kWh. Looking at the repayment in a straight straight line
5kW horizontal turbine based on av WInd 4,5 to 5 ms = 29 years pay back
1MW Solar parking roof 28 years payback [2,4 hours or 10% yield] 240w panels
PowerCan 200 200kWe plus 260kWth and with wood chip at 30 Euro per ton repayment period 3,9 years we discounted the heat at 5 Euro Cents per kWth
If you need any further information please ask
I agree entirely with the comment made by the professorJorge Morales Pedraza. If you need to more information about cost of kWh for differet power plants (renewable or not) in Europe, if you want, you can contact to me.
Joao I suggest you to take a look to the 2010 IEA document "Projected Costs of Generating Electricity" (http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/projected_costs.pdf).
I think you'll find some answers to your questions (at leaast for the electricity sector).
I suggest to those interested in renewables to review the Renewable 2013 Global Status Report produced by REN 21 (Table 2 in particular), that can be downloaded from the Web.
Chemists at Oregon State University have discovered that simple microwave energy can be used to make a very promising group of compounds called "skutterudites," and lead to greatly improved methods of capturing wasted heat and turning it into useful electricity.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110920120238.htm
I want to thank you all for your suggestions. With the links you provided and the stuff we researched ourselves we solved the problem. If it is of interest to anyone the most useful references we found were:
Several Technologies and energy sources documents:
-> European union (2008) Energy Sources, Production Costs and Performance of Technologies - Overnight Capital, annualized and fuel costs per technology
link: http://ec.europa.eu/energy/strategies/2008/doc/2008_11_ser2/strategic_energy_review_wd_cost_performance.pdf
-> IEA (2010) Projected Costs of Generating Electricity - Investment, O&M and other costs per technology mainly used for each country/region
link: http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/projected_costs.pdf
-> NREL (2012) Cost and performance data for power generation technologies - costs and performance estimation for both conventional and renewable technologies (contains capital costs breakdown)
link: http://bv.com/docs/reports-studies/nrel-cost-report.pdf
-> CRS (2008) Power Plants: Characteristics and costs - Several types of power generation technologies and the factors that drive power plant costs (costs and financial Analysis)
link: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34746.pdf
-> REN 21 (2013) Renewables Global status report - Investment and production costs by technology for several sources
link: http://www.ren21.net/portals/0/documents/resources/gsr/2013/gsr2013_lowres.pdf
Technologies of one specific energy source:
-> EWEA (2009) The Economics of Wind Energy
link: http://www.ewea.org/fileadmin/ewea_documents/documents/00_POLICY_document/Economics_of_Wind_Energy__March_2009_.pdf
-> EWEA, Wind Energy the facts: costs & prices
link: http://www.ewea.org/fileadmin/ewea_documents/documents/publications/WETF/Facts_Volume_2.pdf
-> EIA(2010) Hydropower Essentials
link: http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/name,3930,en.html
-> EIA(2010) Geothermal Essentials
link: http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/name,3914,en.html
-> IRENA(2013) Biomass Co-firing
link: http://www.irena.org/DocumentDownloads/Publications/IRENA-ETSAP%20Tech%20Brief%20E21%20Biomass%20Co-firing.pdf
Capital costs breakdown and O&M facts;
-> IRENA (2012) Renewable Energy Technologies Cost Analysis: BIOMASS
link: http://www.irena.org/DocumentDownloads/Publications/RE_Technologies_Cost_Analysis-BIOMASS.pdf
-> IRENA (2012) Renewable Energy Technologies Cost Analysis: SOLAR PV
link: http://www.irena.org/DocumentDownloads/Publications/RE_Technologies_Cost_Analysis-SOLAR_PV.pdf
-> IRENA (2012) Renewable Energy Technologies Cost Analysis: Hydropower
link: https://www.irena.org/DocumentDownloads/Publications/RE_Technologies_Cost_Analysis-WIND_POWER.pdf
Dear João,
See the the following answers
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Would_you_mind_providing_some_papers_comprising_economic_data_of_a_typical_small-scale_Wind_Turbine?_tpcectx=profile_questions
Regards,
Morteza Shabanzadeh
http://mortezash.blogfa.com/
Dear @João, I have just received this article from Power: Nuclear Is Still the Lowest Cost Option, says IEA/NEA Report!
http://www.powermag.com/nuclear-is-still-the-lowest-cost-option-says-ieanea-report/?hq_e=el&hq_m=3143129&hq_l=2&hq_v=3b171a1d10
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